Unfortunately, I'm still playing catch-up with my reviews. Stay with me, kids.
Genre: Biography, Non-Fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Published: 1982
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 348
Last year, I read Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On , which is his account of the early years of AIDS public policy and scientific research. DESPITE it being a little over 600 pages (of small, frequently scientific print), I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to put it on my "favorites" list on the basis that it was infuriating, informative, heartbreaking, and then some. After reading it, I decided that I wanted to check out his other books, so I picked up The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.
I originally wanted this review to coincide with a few events: Milk's birthday, the issuing of a Harvey Milk stamp , and the release of HBO's The Normal Heart (which is more about AIDS than it is about Harvey Milk). Unfortunately, this review is quite a few months overdue. (Talking about my good intentions is just as good as actually following through, yeah?)
(I guess I'd also like to give a quick disclaimer before this review to say that I identify as straight, and so I might fail to convey some important information in this review.)
The Mayor of Castro Street is a comprehensive biography of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California when he won a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. The book begins with his childhood in Long Island and follows him throughout his adulthood in New York City, Texas, his time in the Navy, and his eventual move to the Castro District in San Francisco.
As Shilts details these personal details, he also assesses the social and cultural events that caused the Castro to emerge as a gay neighborhood. Shilts also spends time detailing San Franciscan politics (as well as "gay" politics) prior to Harvey's arrival, including the activist José Sarria (who was the first only gay candidate for public office in the United States), as well as gay political organizations such as the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club.
I found The Mayor of Castro Street to be as inspiring and interesting as it was heartbreaking and infuriating. While the book does focus on the "gay" movement, "gay" in this instance refers to (almost exclusively) as "male," since (asides from Anne Kronenberg, a political aide of Harvey) lesbians receive little mention in this book. Transgender individuals also receive little to no mention. This...lack of political representation made me wonder if the change that Harvey inspired would be been possible if he were lesbian, transgender, or an LGBT+ person of color.
From left to right: Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dan White. White was convicted of the manslaughter, as opposed to murder, of Milk and Moscone. White served only five years of a seven year sentence. Via .
The Mayor of Castro Street is at times an infuriating recollection of local, state-wide, and national politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Gay politics then relied almost exclusively on straight, liberal allies. Harvey, Shilts, notes, was regarded as radical by many members of the "old guard" gay political community because he argued that gays should seize power for themselves and not rely on handouts or favors from said "allies."
I found that it complemented Shilts's And the Band Played On very nicely, as Band discussed the effect that Harvey had nationwide on gay politics and attitudes. I also noticed parallels between Shilts's discussion of gentrification in San Francisco during the 1970s and now.
I do not think Shilts tried to pull many (or any) punches when it came to describing Harvey, and so I would like to think that Mayor enabled me to develop a more complex view of Harvey Milk.
In The Mayor of Castro Street, Shilts has crafts a work that is as suspenseful as it is detailed. Shilts slowly sets the state, introducing characters, their motivations, and their eventual fates. His subtlety is devastating. (I say "devastating" because it feels like a sucker punch to the gut — I had a lot of "oh my god, of course" moments while reading this book.)
I think The Mayor of Castro Street absolutely deserves a five star rating. This book made me think about my own (straight, cis white) privilege, how that privilege has carried into the current/modern era (especially regarding political representation), and how "radicalism" can be as benign as saying that marginalized peoples and communities should represent themselves in government. It made me consider how much progress we have made (as a society, as well as legally) in the LGBT+ civil rights movement. This book both enthralled me and upset me while providing me with a rich history of San Francisco and the LGBT+ civil rights movement. I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone interested in American history, LGBT+ issues, or civil rights.
Interested in learning more? See Before / After Stonewall , The Castro , and The Times of Harvey Milk .
No comments:
Post a Comment